TALK ABOUT A FEW GOOD BREAKS ...

"Everyone I've talked to at ABC says they've never dealt with a situation
quite like this, where a very expensive show is finished shooting, looks great
and all 13 episodes are in the can ... before it even makes it to air to see
how people will respond to it."

It's not as though "Capital News" were a dog. "I'm proud of what I've seen
of the show," Bethlehem's Dan Roebuck says about his second television series.
(It will finally premiere in two-hour movie form at 9 p.m. Monday, before
settling down in its regular time slot at 10 p.m. next Monday). But what with
a crowded second season schedule of adult-oriented drama, including "Equal
Justice," and David Lynch's wildly anticipated "Twin Peaks," ABC had trouble
finding a berth for its latest Lloyd Bridges starrer. (It is Bridges' seventh
series).

Roebuck is featured as reporter Haskell Epstein in what is, strictly
speaking, an ensemble piece set in a newsroom supposedly a twin to The
Washington Post. (But Bridges' character Jo-Jo Turner is said to bear a
striking similarity to Post executive editor Ben Bradlee).

Roebuck, who made the critics and the public sit up and notice in the
theatrical films "River's Edge" and "Disorganized Crime" has done well in his
six years in Los Angeles. There was also the largely forgotten "Dirty Dozen"
series he made with Ben Murphy for Fox two years ago, and a recurring role on
Andy Griffith's "Matlock" for two seasons. Roebuck, Michael Woods and Helen
Slater are perhaps the three best-known among the lot of players Bridges has
called "a wonderful cast of actors.".

I tell Dan the word is that "Capital News" picks up where Ed Asner's
newsroom drama "Lou Grant" left off. "Really?" he says by phone from Glendale,
which, though he says its stodginess and quiet suit him, he is about to
abandon for a move 10 miles north to his new ranch home at Mission Hills.

"I'd say it's really a hybrid between `Lou Grant' and `Hill Street Blues.'
David Milch, one of the creators of `Hill Street,' is the driving force behind
this show." In it, he says, "you get a glimpse of everyone's life, but the
amazing newsroom set is focal point of show. That and four characters, myself
included, who all live in a house together."

Obviously, Roebuck is still under contract to the series and can't work
elsewhere until the rating's dye is cast and ABC either picks the series up
with an order for 13 more episodes... or doesn't. He is bound until June, when
they have to tell him either way. But that is not the only oddity concerning
Roebuck and "Capital News."

Unfortunately, about midway through the first 13 episodes, Roebuck's
newsroom vis-a-vis, played by Jenny Wright with whom he is pictured on the
cover, became ill. "She got sick in the fifth or sixth episode. I disappeared
(along with her) for four episodes and when we returned, we never really came
back to speed for some reason." As a consolation prize, the producers gave
Roebuck the ninth episode, which in television parlance means his character is
written to become the main focus of the storyline.

What happens, Roebuck says, using "L.A. Law" for an example, is that when
an ensemble show starts out, everyone is given equal prominence even though
"Harry Hamlin and Susan Dey are supposed to be the stars. But over the course
of time, public opinion mixes in. It turned Michael Tucker and Corbin Bernson
into the real stars. That's how things change."

While Roebuck and Wright were away from the plot, the producers chose to
highlight the love affair between Helen Slater and William Russ instead. But
that direction could change once more, depending on public response.

Television is not an exact science. Uncertainty is why some young actors --
he is 27 -- are often left hanging in self-doubt and disappointment.

"It's not as I had wished; it's an unfortunate stuation. But how do you
ever prepare yourself for something like that?" Roebuck muses
philosophically.

"I've had five `big breaks' and every one has led me up the ladder a bit.
But none have been the break I thought they would be."

All things being equal, he would prefer doing theatrical features. "The
(prejudicial) line between movie and television is disappearing but it's still
there. I got to develop more as a character actor in features, where the
benefits overall are a little better. You work a little slower and get to do
more different things, not the same thing every day.

"But you get to the point," he went on in a streak of high-energy, "where
you want to be comfortable. You want to eat. When I agreed to do the series I
knew my character wouldn't be a star in the beginning, but it might develop.
It wouldn't be thrown into the background, they assured me. But the unforeseen
happened."

It's happened to him before. He was written out of a movie three years ago
when his role ended up "not being right." Two months ago he started a film for
John Hughes in Chicago, and just before shooting began, the powers that be
decided he was too young.

"The more I climb up the ladder, the more barriers are thrown in my way.
But I don't think `Oh God, this is a sign that I shouldn't be doing this.' On
the contrary, it means I must work harder."

Roebuck sounds like an up-tempo guy who knows how to roll with life's body
blows. Haskell, his character, he says, "looks more like me more than any
other part I've ever played, but he's an underdog and I've never played an
underdog." He was not brought up Jewish either, he says, referring to 12 years
of parochial school to prove it.

"Haskell Epstein is even an underdog name isn't it? When you're born with a
name like that you have to come up through the ranks the harder way. It's like
having a name like Daniel Roebuck," he says. "I thought of changing it for a
second until I realized that people always remember it. You know. Sears & ..."

And then there is the Roebuck family back home. His parents, an older and
younger brother and a younger sister are tightly knotted in Bethlehem, where
he returns frequently because he is a hometown-boy kind of guy. "Really good
people," he says, and the name stays. "So I have to go out there, this Slavic
Dutch boy from Pennsylvania, and hold my head high and say to myself `You're
just gonna have to deal with it, dammit.'"

The best gift he's received in six years, he says, was "Matlock" and Andy
Griffith. A string of guest appearances blew up when the network decided it
didn't want him on the show, anymore. Nothing personal, you understand.

"I was hired four years ago to play a suspect. It was just supposed to be
one episode but something happened between Andy and me. He took a liking to
me. "He said `Who is this guy? That's who we need on the show.'"

They really hit it off. Grffith was generous with the fatherly advice.
Roebuck had just finished doing a community theater version of "No Time for
Sergeants," the Broadway play that had transported Griffith to stardom decades
before. "And he's a Moravian, who nearly came to Bethlehem to study at the
college. The guy is just amazing."

"And so, the producers developed the character into Alex Winthrop, a whole
'nother guy, and we got a two-part season opener two years ago introducing my
chracter as the new guy on the show."

Great break, right? Only the network decided it wanted someone "more in the
Michael J. Fox mold and ended up never finding the person." Griffith wanted
Roebuck, the network wanted demographics. It all went up the shoot. "It was
all amicable. I'd find a message on my machine. `Hi Dan, it's Andy. I just
wanted to tell you how television works ... ' This great actor was taking me
under his wing to tell me what was happening, reaffirming that it wasn't my
work."

So "Capital News," Roebuck figures, is about the fifth big break in his
Hollywood career. It's an arresting story when you realize it was less than a
decade ago that he was doing community theater in the Lehigh Valley, selling
tickets at Allentown's Pennsylvania Stage Co. box office, finally graduating
to walk-ons at that regional theater with sneeze-and-you'll-miss-him parts
like the barber in "Born Yesterday."

His Hollywood apparatus is in motion. Agents, managers and publicist who
work for him. A brand new house with a pool and Jacuzzi and a room for his
collections. (He is seriously involved with toy collectibles, particularly
Captain Action dolls and monster film masks).

"If I were a real estate agent, I would hang on back lot. The minute
someone gets a serious series, all of a sudden he buys a house," he says.

His team of trained experts, he says, "does the whole Hollywood thing for
you. They do my work and they tell me where to go and what to read and I do
the rest."

A colorful talker, he continues unprompted. He wants eventually to have his
own production comany because "I need control. I like to know what's gonna
happen in the course of a day. My friends all make fun of me but I need to
plan things out. There's very little spontaneity in my life. I've had a lot of
really good friends, good mirrors, people who really know me who've maintained
that my greatest strength is that I know my weaknesses.

"Like, I know I can't be part of the Hollywood party scene. I'd be so
annoyed by it all. There are more colors than black. I went to a Hollywood
Christmas party once and I was the only one wearing a different color.
Everyone else had on black. For CHRISTMAS! No red. No green. No festivity.
Just black."

He's not at all sure he's glad the way the deal-making industry is going,
either. "People under 40 are in control right now in the new Hollywood. The
people making decisions were law students, not Jack Warners or people who knew
and loved the business. Now it's about making decisions demographically."

He has not, he says, gone Hollywood. "I give my parents an enormous amount
of credit. Someone said once that "Nobody's a star in their own home, which is
so true of my home. The whole notion of a star is in direct contrast with what
I've been brought up to believe. What my father does, what my mother does, how
they work and interract with people is no less important than how I
interract.

"My mother is going to graduate from college after 13 years of going to
night school. Thirteen years to better herself. That takes an amazing amount
of strength. Everyone has their own little victory and that's just as
interesting, just as important as me having this job and being an actor.

The best part about his job: "I can get up in the morning and not regret
going to work."

PHOTO by UNKNOWN.
CAPTION: Bethlehem actor Dan Roebuck and actress Jenny Wright take their
place in the newsroom for the new Lloyd Bridges' series "Capital News,"
premiering at 9 p.m. Monday on ABC. (Appeared on Cover Page, TV Channel
Choices.)

PHOTO by DAN DeLONG, The Morning Call
CAPTION: Actor Dan Roebuck: in Bethlehem with parents Elaine and John Roebuck